More and more devices are being replaced with autonomous and semiautonomous electronic devices. This is especially true in the hospitals of today with large arrays of autonomous and semiautonomous electronic devices being found in operating rooms, interventional suites, intensive care wards, emergency rooms, and the like. For example, glass and mercury thermometers are being replaced with electronic thermometers, intravenous drip lines now include electronic monitors and flow regulators, and traditional hand-held surgical instruments are being replaced by computer-assisted medical devices.
These electronic devices provide both advantages and challenges to the personnel operating them. Many of these electronic devices may be capable of autonomous or semiautonomous motion of one or more articulated arms and/or end effectors. These one or more articulated arms and/or end effectors each include a combination of links and articulated joints that support motion of the articulated arms and/or end effectors. In many cases, the articulated joints are manipulated to obtain a desired position and/or orientation (collectively, a desired pose) of a corresponding tool located at a distal end of the links and articulated joints of a corresponding articulated arm and/or end effector. Each of the articulated joints proximal to the tool provides the corresponding articulated arm and/or end effector with at least one degree of freedom that may be used to manipulate the position and/or orientation of the corresponding tool. In many cases, the corresponding articulated arms and/or end effectors may include at least six degrees of freedom that allow for controlling a x, y, and z position of the corresponding tool as well as a roll, pitch, and yaw orientation of the corresponding tool.
In some cases, an operator may desire to guide an articulated arm into a particular configuration (i.e., to manually position one or more joints in the arm). However, with so many degrees of freedom, an operator may experience difficulty determining when the desired configuration has been obtained. The operator may further experience difficulty deciding which direction to move the joints to reach the desired configuration. Still further, the operator may be unaware of physical and/or practical constraints associated with each joint such as a maximum allowable joint velocity, range of motion limits, and/or the like. As a result, an operator attempting to manually position one or more joints of an articulated arm to reach a predetermined configuration may struggle to do so accurately, quickly, and/or without risking damage to the device and/or injury to nearby personnel such as the operator and/or a patient.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide feedback to the operator to facilitate manual joint positioning.